Disease eradication is reducing the incidence of a disease to zero, requiring no human intervention to prevent it. Smallpox is the only disease eradicated due to effective vaccination. Three factors must be present for a disease to be considered eradicable, and collaboration is essential for success.
Disease eradication occurs when the incidence of infection of a particular infectious disease in the world is reduced to zero. After eradication, no human intervention is needed to prevent others from contracting the disease. If intervention is still needed, true eradication has not yet occurred. Eradication is an intentional process; healthcare professionals around the world are collaborating and making purposeful efforts to reduce the incidence of a disease to zero so that it can never again affect others. Disease eradication is often confused with disease elimination, where the incidence of a disease in a particular area is reduced to zero.
Disease eradication is an incredibly difficult process given the pervasive and rapidly replicating nature of most disease-causing agents. To date, the only disease that has ever been successfully eradicated from Earth is smallpox, an incredibly deadly viral infection unique to humans. Highly effective vaccination methods have protected humans from contracting the virus. Without hosts to infect, the virus could not sustain itself, and the global incidence of smallpox dropped to zero. Aside from isolated specimens kept in carefully controlled laboratories for research purposes, the viruses that cause smallpox have been successfully and completely eliminated.
There are three main factors that must be present for a disease to be considered eradicable. For disease eradication to occur, there must be a way to cease the transmission of the disease between humans so that the infection cannot spread freely from one person to another. There must also be an accurate way to diagnose individuals; eradication cannot be verified if there are no adequate diagnostic techniques. Finally, it must be a human disease that cannot survive in other animals or in the external environment, as it is simply not possible to eradicate a disease that can exist in any number of organisms or in any number of external locations.
These criteria are just some of the many factors required for the complete eradication of the disease. There are also many economic, social and political elements required for any attempt to eradicate the disease to be successful. Collaboration is extraordinarily important: without the full dedication of governments, health professionals and the people involved, eradication is simply not possible. Eradicating diseases is also resource-intensive, as research, vaccines, and other drugs tend to be quite expensive. The global commitment of resources, manpower and political support is necessary to remove the effects of even a single disease from humanity.
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